Related papers: GuideTouch: An Obstacle Avoidance Device with Tact…
Globally, 340 million people have blindness or moderate to severe visual impairment (BVI)$^1$ which limits independent outdoor navigation$^2$ and negatively affects their health and quality of life$^{3,4}$. We surveyed 112 people with BVI…
The proposed system aims to be a techno-friend of visually impaired people to assist them in orientation and mobility both indoor and outdoor. Moving through an unknown environment becomes a real challenge for most of them, although they…
Hand-held haptic devices can allow for greater freedom of motion and larger workspaces than traditional grounded haptic devices. They can also provide more compelling haptic sensations to the users' fingertips than many wearable haptic…
Tactile sensing is vital for human dexterous manipulation, however, it has not been widely used in robotics. Compact, low-cost sensing platforms can facilitate a change, but unlike their popular optical counterparts, they are difficult to…
As head-mounted displays (HMDs) with eye-tracking become increasingly accessible, the need for effective gaze-based interfaces in virtual reality (VR) grows. Traditional gaze- or hand-based navigation often limits user precision or impairs…
Recent advancements in computer vision have led to a renewed interest in developing assistive technologies for individuals with visual impairments. Although extensive research has been conducted in the field of computer vision-based…
On the off-the-shelf navigational assistance devices, the localization precision is limited to the signal error of global navigation satellite system (GNSS). During travelling outdoors, the inaccurately localization perplexes visually…
Accurate perception of dynamic obstacles is essential for autonomous robot navigation in indoor environments. Although sophisticated 3D object detection and tracking methods have been investigated and developed thoroughly in the fields of…
The navigation of indoor spaces poses difficult challenges for individuals with visual impairments, as it requires processing of sensory information, dealing with uncertainties, and relying on assistance. To tackle these challenges, we…
Large indoor spaces have complex layouts making them difficult to navigate. Indoor spaces in hospitals, universities, shopping complexes, etc., carry multi-modal information in the form of text and symbols. Hence, it is difficult for Blind…
Complex tasks require human collaboration since robots do not have enough dexterity. However, robots are still used as instruments and not as collaborative systems. We are introducing a framework to ensure safety in a human-robot…
To achieve high fidelity haptic rendering of soft objects in a high mobility virtual environment, we propose a novel haptic display DandelionTouch. The tactile actuators are delivered to the fingertips of the user by a swarm of drones.…
Vision-only grasping systems are fundamentally constrained by calibration errors, sensor noise, and grasp pose prediction inaccuracies, leading to unavoidable contact uncertainty in the final stage of grasping. High-bandwidth tactile…
A quadruped robot is a promising system that can offer assistance comparable to that of dog guides due to its similar form factor. However, various challenges remain in making these robots a reliable option for blind and low-vision (BLV)…
The perception and recognition of the surroundings is one of the essential tasks for a robot. With preliminary knowledge about a target object, it can perform various manipulation tasks such as rolling motion, palpation, and force control.…
Spatial tactile feedback can enhance the realism of geometry exploration in virtual reality applications. Current vibrotactile approaches often face challenges with the spatial and temporal resolution needed to render different 3D…
Classic computer vision algorithms, instance segmentation, and semantic segmentation can not provide a holistic understanding of the surroundings for the visually impaired. In this paper, we utilize panoptic segmentation to assist the…
Visuotactile sensors provide high-resolution tactile information but are incapable of perceiving the material features of objects. We present UltraTac, an integrated sensor that combines visuotactile imaging with ultrasound sensing through…
We have pioneered the Where-You-Look-Is Where-You-Go approach to controlling mobility platforms by decoding how the user looks at the environment to understand where they want to navigate their mobility device. However, many natural…
Common fully glazed facades and transparent objects present architectural barriers and impede the mobility of people with low vision or blindness, for instance, a path detected behind a glass door is inaccessible unless it is correctly…